1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to medical devices and methods for performing ablation procedures. More particularly, the invention relates to methods and apparatus for limiting electrode heating and blood coagulation during ablation procedures.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The human heart is a very complex organ, which relies on both muscle contraction and electrical impulses to function properly. The electrical impulses travel through the heart walls, first through the atria and then the ventricles, causing the corresponding muscle tissue in the atria and ventricles to contract. Thus, the atria contract first, followed by the ventricles. This order is essential for proper functioning of the heart.
Over time, the electrical impulses traveling through the heart can begin to travel in improper directions, thereby causing the heart chambers to contract at improper times. Such a condition is generally termed a cardiac arrhythmia, and can take many different forms. When the chambers contract at improper times, the amount of blood pumped by the heart decreases, which can result in premature death of the person.
Techniques have been developed which are used to locate cardiac regions responsible for the cardiac arrhythmia, and also to disable the short-circuit function of these areas. According to these techniques, electrical energy is applied to a portion of the heart tissue to ablate that tissue and produce scars which interrupt the reentrant conduction pathways or terminate the focal initiation. The regions to be ablated are usually first determined by endocardial mapping techniques. Mapping typically involves percutaneously introducing a catheter having one or more electrodes into the patient, passing the catheter through a blood vessel (e.g. the femoral vein or artery) and into an endocardial site (e.g., the atrium or ventricle of the heart), and deliberately inducing an arrhythmia so that a continuous, simultaneous recording can be made with a multichannel recorder at each of several different endocardial positions. When an arrythormogenic focus or inappropriate circuit is located, as indicated in the electrocardiogram recording, it is marked by various imaging or localization means so that cardiac arrhythmias emanating from that region can be blocked by ablating tissue. An ablation catheter with one or more electrodes can then transmit electrical energy to the tissue adjacent the electrode to create a lesion in the tissue. One or more suitably positioned lesions will typically create a region of necrotic tissue which serves to disable the propagation of the errant impulse caused by the arrythromogenic focus. Ablation is carried out by applying energy to the catheter electrodes. The ablation energy can be, for example, RF, DC, ultrasound, microwave, or laser radiation.
Atrial fibrillation together with atrial flutter are the most common sustained arrhythmias found in clinical practice.
Another source of arrhythmias may be from reentrant circuits in the myocardium itself. Such circuits may not necessarily be associated with vessel ostia, but may be interrupted by means of ablating tissue either within the circuit or circumscribing the region of the circuit. It should be noted that a complete ‘fence’ around a circuit or tissue region is not always required in order to block the propagation of the arrhythmia; in many cases simply increasing the propagation path length for a signal may be sufficient. Conventional means for establishing such lesion ‘fences’ include a multiplicity of point-by-point lesions, dragging a single electrode across tissue while delivering energy, or creating an enormous lesion intended to inactivate a substantive volume of myocardial tissue.
In creating lesions, care is taken to limit blood coagulation and tissue charring and desiccation. These undesirable effects can occur if temperatures in the tissue or blood rise to 100° C. or higher. In addition to effects on the blood and tissue, temperatures of 100° C. or more at the electrode-tissue interface can foul an electrode due to tissue charring. Various strategies are employed to maintain temperatures below 100° C. Electrode cooling (active and/or passive) is one strategy employed in an attempt to cool the tissue at the tissue surface. Other strategies include limiting the power applied to the electrode based on pre-determined estimates of appropriate power levels, and reducing the power applied to the electrode in response to feedback signals from the electrode or other sensors. Reduced power application, however, is balanced with the desirability of raising the temperature of an adequate volume of tissue above its viability temperature and the benefits of reducing total procedure time.
Blood coagulation can occur when electrode hotspots lead to convective heating of the blood or the energy being emitted by the electrode is concentrated due to the geometry of the electrode arrangement. There exists a need to improve the delivery of energy to tissue to form lesions without exceeding electrode temperatures or energy concentrations that result in blood coagulation.